a DIY tool that may come in handy...

The 3.5 million pounds of spent radioactive fuel conundrum, on the subject of hieroglyphic hobo code, and in the "Oil industry wants taxpayers to spend billions to protect it from climate change" department...

James Baldwin from Atom Voyages has an excellent how to video on building yourself a hookah for little money.



Definitely a tool that you'll find useful.

Listening to Tyree Morris and the Hearts of Worship

So it goes...

Skin like sandpaper and real big teeth...

Back when I was a kid, my brother and I started our version of a lemonade stand... Since we lived on Catalina, instead of making lemonade we did the next best thing and started catching fish for salt-water aquarium folk.

As things go it was actually a pretty successful business enterprise for a couple of kids. Once we moved from simply using an aquarium net to home-built slurp guns we actually started making money.

The downside was being the greedy kids we were we'd find ourselves festooned with plastic bags containing little fish all thrumming with danger danger Will Robinson vibrations which attracted sharks who thought someone had just rang a dinner bell. The worst were young adolescent Tiger sharks who would rip the bags off our belts and come back for more... Coming home from a hard day catching critters, the difficult part was having to explain to my dad how I wound up looking like I'd lost a fight with a belt sander.

Have I ever mentioned I used to be young and stupid?

Over the years while spearfishing and surfing I have had no shortage of up-close-and-personal experiences with a variety of sharks who never seem to have been interested in eating me but they have had some serious interest in fish I've speared and my surfboards...

Which is why I perk up when folks mention shark repellents as anything that makes sharks less interested in my upcoming dinner or surfboard would be no bad thing!

Shark Camo out of OZ is making a large decal you put on the bottom of your surfboard that says to sharks don't bother...

Since it's less than $50 and even looks cool it's sort of a no-brainer!

Another company that seems to have a viable product is Shark Shocker which is a wrist/ankle band containing very strong magnets that sharks and rays don't find pleasing. The video of various rays reactions at an aquarium petting pool seems to show that they just might be on to something. At a pretty reasonable $30, I'd certainly give it a try...




Hey, I'm no longer young but apparently still kinda stupid!

Listening to Shark-Fin Blues by the Drones.

So it goes...

Making money cruising...

One of the big questions, right after "How much does it cost to cruise?" is the flip side of the coin "How can I make money while cruising?"

In my own case not being independently wealthy when we made our first foray into long term cruising we really did not have a clue. Figuring we were smart and had some skills and that something would come up... and to misquote that line from "Shakespeare in Love", something always did!

As far as the nitty gritty goes though, having all of the tools we used to build Loose Moose 2 and the skills to use them was a help. These days there are a lot of people cruising who don't have basic boatwright skills and are always needing something done. Having the necessary tools, I also made dinghies, self-steering gears and so on... On boats people always need something.

But you don't need lots of tools (well you do but that's another thing entirely) and for instance, if you wanted to set yourself up as a rigger, a couple of Crescent wrenches, a vise, a tension gauge or two, a hack saw and Bosun's chair is pretty much all of the tools you need to set yourself up as a rigger... Well you can't forget the skill set involved as that is the main deal... Your talent!

Since we also had a sewing machine, we did sail repairs and made flags (lots and lots of flags in fact)!

One of the things we had invested in was a Hookah rig and whenever I took it out and used it, people would find things they needed done underwater... Cleaning hulls, finding stuff, underwater repairs, salvage and such became a regular part of our income. That hookah was one of the best investments we ever made!

Of course its not all boat stuff... Over the years we have seen people supporting the cruising habit by cutting hair, doing computer work, building websites, baking, freelance Chef for charter boats, and running websites that bring in income. All sorts of stuff! By and large lots of services and products are needed in the cruising community, and more often than not a cruiser would be much happier buying hand-made fishing lures from a cruiser rather than a store.

While these days we have a Yacht Charter company, plus I still shoot and make films, so we're more of a nomadic sailing office these days as opposed to a sailing workshop, but as we begin another cycle of cruising and voyaging we still have the Tools, Hookah and Sewing machine because diversity is a good thing. And, in these difficult times, being versatile gives us confidence that we can make a decent living whatever the economy does! Fact is, we are looking at all sorts of alternate earning streams from website income producers to doing our own book and film publishing.

Mow your lawn Lady?

Stuff that works...

I've been a scuba diver since I was a kid, Two hose regulators were Chic and Sea Hunt was a new show...I've been a gear geek from time to time but always leaning toward simplicity rather than lot of stuff and push comes to shove I'd still rather free dive...but from time to time being able to stay down longer than I can hold my breath is needful...

Being on a boat of course makes it even more problematic...Tanks are heavy , take up a lot of room , cause wear and tear and then you need to fill them! Compressors able to fill a tank in any kind of timely manner are both expensive AND heavy and take up even more space.

The option we chose on So it Goes is a Hookah rig...When I need tanks I find I can almost always rent them and the Hookah takes up much less space and less weight than tanks.

Over the years I've discovered that a Hookah system is much more practical for working on the boat underwater and in terms of underwater photography and film making in 90% of the situations I encounter makes far more sense and in the 10% of situations that it does not make sense neither do standard tanks as that winds up being more the sort of thing for rebreather work.

While we were cruising with Loose Moose 2 I actually earned quite a bit along the way doing underwater jobs and it seemed wherever we went someone needed mooring worked on, a bottom cleaned, zincs replaced or needed some salvage work done. In fact my last hookah rig was paid for the very first time I used it and actually continued to show a profit the whole time we cruised.

While I have seen a lot of build it yourself Hookah set ups that seem to sort of make sense ( especially of the electric variety) on one level or another (and me being Mr Cheap seats) I still think it is prudent and smart to buy a commercial unit as the various companies building Hookah rigs have invested a lot of design time, expense and hard work into making SAFE products that work well. Point of fact my current Hookah rig (Brownies Third Lung) is a very big improvement to my previous one in that it is quieter, uses less gas and is just an all around better unit...They also make a less expensive model which is more than adequate for most peoples needs and quite a bargain in the Brownies 280.

One of the nice things about Brownie's is that they make an accessory that allows you to use a BCD which really should be a part of your kit, though it would be really sweet if someone were to come up with a BCD designed for Hookah divers...For the moment I am using a technical BCD which is way overkill for my needs when using surface supplied air so on the lookout for a more Hookah friendly rig.

My place in the food chain... ongoing

Sailing into the USVI to find a big Amazon order ( can you spell DVD's) waiting at one of our mail drops is always nice and being able to catch up on "EXTRAS", "HOUSE, MD" and the second half of "ENTOURAGE" but the real treat was my new slip tip spear head for my hand spear from Gat Ku which is just PERFECTO...Excellent design and workmanship at a price that is cheap when you consider what others are charging these days. Can't wait to get it wet....

On the downside my minions at DEMA were unsuccessful at scoring new carbon blades for my Sporasub Variant fins which seem to be discontinued but as Sporasub did not have anyone around to ask about them ( and they do not respond to their emails) you have to wonder why a big company ( I believe that Sporasub is a division of Mares) does not provide the kind of service that a small companies like Gat Ku, Ray Odor and Hammerhead do on a daily basis.

Just a note on the Sporasub Variant fins ...They are the best fins I have ever used...PERIOD and the fact that the bane of long finners is overcome by the simple if clever fix of making them two part makes them pack and stow in almost less space than normal fins , an Elegant solution!.I have noticed that they seem to be closing out whats left of the model on Amazon but of course my sizing is not in the mix so if you have small feet and need some top of the line long fins at cheapo cheapo prices..Go for it!

And by the way if anyone out there in the real world knows of a shop that has blades for the Sporasub Variants please drop me a line...

Now I'll just say a hasty Happy "T" day as lobster is (hopefully) on the menu and still needs to be caught!